KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian authorities expanded their search for the missing jetliner westward toward India on Thursday, saying it may have flown for several hours after its last contact with the ground.
CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that there are technical indicators suggesting the plane continued to fly for an unspecified period of time after civilian air traffic controllers lost radar contact with the jet. Sources say the Boeing 777 continued to attempt to transmit routine data about the plane's engines and performance to satellites. Malaysian authorities and Boeing apparently did not downlink the data, so details from plane's transmissions are not known.
But, the fact that the jet was continuing to send signals is a strong indication that the jet did not crash immediately after radar contact was lost. The engines instead continued to run, Orr reports, meaning the plane continued in flight or perhaps was on the ground but still producing power.
In addition, U.S. radar experts have looked at the Malaysian military radar track, which seemed to show the jet flying hundreds of miles off course west of its flight path, and back across the Malaysian peninsula. Sources say the radar appears to be legitimate and there is a strong reason to suspect that the unidentified blips - seen on military controller screens - are images of Malaysian Airlines 370.
All of this, Orr reports, is leading to the possibility that the jet flew for hours towards the Indian Ocean. And it is the reason the search field is expanding in that direction.
That scenario would make finding the Boeing 777 a vastly more difficult task, and raises the possibility that searchers have been looking in the wrong place for the plane and its 239 passengers and crew since it disappeared early Saturday en route to Beijing.
Meanwhile, the White House, citing "new information," confirmed that the search for the plane might be extended to the Indian Ocean.
"It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive - but new information - an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "And we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy."
India says its navy, air force and coast guard are now looking for the missing plane after it received a formal request for help from the Malaysian government.
In the latest in a series of false leads in the hunt, search planes were sent Thursday to search an area off the southern tip of Vietnam where Chinese satellite images published on a Chinese government website reportedly showed three suspected floating objects. They saw only ocean.
"There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing," said acting Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein.
Compounding the frustration, he later said the Chinese Embassy had notified the government that the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
The plane left Kuala Lumpur and was flying northeast across the Gulf of Thailand and into the South China Sea when it dropped off civilian radar without any indication it was having any technical problems.
An international search effort is methodically sweeping parts of the South China Sea. A roughly similar-sized hunt is also being conducted to the west in the Strait of Malacca because of military radar sightings that might indicate the plane headed that way after its last contact, passing over the Malay Peninsula. The total area is around 35,800 square miles, or about the size of Portugal.
Sources close to the investigation tells CBS News that the NTSB has validated the Malaysian military radar records and has determined that it is necessary to expand the search to the western Strait of Malacca.
CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the U.S. military is shifting the USS Kidd from east to west of the Malaysian peninsula and the USS Pinckney is going back into Singapore for repairs. A Navy P-8, the newest version of the P-3 maritime surveillance plane that has been there, will replace the P-3 Friday.
SOURCE:-CBSNEWS
